


Music of the Spheres - Echoes

by scaredykitty



Category: Loading Ready Run, LoadingReadyRun
Genre: Cthulhu Mythos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2020-03-29 12:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19019881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaredykitty/pseuds/scaredykitty
Summary: Norman Weiss should know to just not play this new game. He really should. And yet, here he is, not able to put it down.





	1. Chimes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if I'll finish. I plan on writing more, but I've been having some mental health issues lately.

“Welcome back!” the screen proclaimed in mottled green and blue letters. 

Norman looked at the message with both bemusement and abject horror, a faint lump in the back of his throat.

It had been many months since the incident with the seaside fort, since the corpse, since he saw such things. Since everything had changed while still staying the same as it all was before. As it all had always been and he just hadn't noticed.

He had held onto the app that started it all almost as a memento that it had actually happened.

He had eventually removed it though, dead weight that it was, and thought nothing of it once it was gone, except for the dreams that occasionally filtered by quietly, forgotten by breakfast.

So when his device suddenly told him that there was a new app he might like, he looked at it.

Horror, AR, Cooperative. He shrugged, and had installed the beta they offered.

No account creation was offered, and instead those letters hung on his phone screen, almost pulsing in time with his heart beats.

He placed a single finger on the screen, clicking on the announcement.

“From your previous experiences, you've levelled to hunter 3!”

“Right. Right. Maybe it uses her old codebase?” he said to himself, chewing on the inside of his cheek nervously. It looked similar, but much more polished, like they had an artist for the game since the start. He had never designed an app before. That wasn't something they taught at the pharmacy. Some people that did design apps occasionally came into the pharmacy, but they never chatted long. Usually just came and went like most clientèle, except for the ones who were into the more...new age side they offered. They could talk forever. But this was not an app to track your psychic mind waves. Probably.

He shook his head, feeling cobwebs growing through his mind as he did so. Clicking the box, he was greeted with several items, both starter items and level up items.

“Flashlight, makes sense. Rope? Are they expecting me to go into a mine? I am not cut out for that. Tin foil? Crystals, okay. A proper grimoire, oooh, that's nice!” Norman mumbled to himself, flipping through the items before they each vanished with a blink and jingle sound, categorizing themselves automatically.

The app gave a short jingle, announcing there was a friend request.

Norman frowned slightly, before clicking it. “Developer Account #1” was the name on the account. 

Maybe they're adding all beta players. As soon as he accepted the request, a short message popped up.

“So uh, how the hell are you level 3 already? What bug happened within the first fifteen minutes we posted the game?” the message said. 

Norman scrolled a finger over the screen, sweating ever so slightly.

“Just opened the game for the first time today. I know nothing.”

Something felt wrong about that. Like he was lying. Like he should send more.

“I did play a game very similar previously, maybe it saw that in my phone?”

Don't mention that he had uninstalled it, so there should be now way of knowing. Don't mention what happened. Don't mention.

Chat hung there for a moment, a small crashing wave signalling the Dev was writing a message.

“Oh? Damn, we did research and thought we were the first to market. Oh well, keep the levels, it's fine. If we meet up, maybe we can talk about the other game?”

“It never made it to market, it was only in alpha.”

“Oh? Weird. Thanks for your time!”

Norman slumped deeper into his tattered couch, closing his eyes briefly. He could uninstall this one, just like the first one. 

He wasn't going to, and he knew it. He couldn't leave it alone. Not now, not with the possibility of seeing what all this was. Why it all happened.

Not with all those dreams that still appeared to him, vague and flimsy and yet so very real.

They weren't haunting, like what they had found in the bunker. They were ephemeral. Whispering things to him that he couldn't hear. That he'd never be able to hear.

But his phone could. 

He glanced over at the clock. Only 8pm. He had no work tomorrow though, so he could go to bed early, wake up even earlier, and go from there.

As he slid into the bedroom, phone heavy in his hand, he paused. There were oils and things, to protect from nightmares. The pharmacy often sent him home with samples, to try out so he could recommend them better when people asked. He had never used them, since it seemed silly to. But he might as well, tonight. Not that they would hurt, it was just some essential oil blends.

Rubbing his throat and head with sweetly scented oil, he laid down in bed, phone next to his head, asleep before he touched the pillow.


	2. Lucid Dreaming

He awoke nearly instantly, standing silently in a grey, formless landscape. 

“A dreamscape. I can control it. Maybe?” He said, slowing raising a hand. He was unsure how he knew where he was. He knew of lucid dreaming, but he had never tried himself. He hadn't had any nightmares or mighty need to try. But he felt no worry at realizing what was happening and raised a hand, the world around him lifting to his command. Tendrils of light and darkness danced around him, bending to his will, the soft sound of rain in the background.

A slow sense of unease inched towards him as he continued to work and pull at the dream, creating ornate spires and complicated structures.

Time passed as a breeze as he did so, the faint creepy dread kept far away as he continued to work, continued to shape and mould and change and create. It was only just as he woke up he realized there was a semi-circle around him of light, upon which several tendrils of faintest mist were probing.

But he woke with a start to his phone buzzing. 

<1 New Alert!>

The phone itself seemed excited. Norman was unsure how it felt excited, but it did. He swiped a finger across the phone with a practised ease, unlocking it with a few quick presses.

The app was still open on the phone, glowing a sickly green colour, as it did when he went to sleep.

“You have gained a new skill! You have gained the ability of Lucid Dreaming!”

“Of course I have,” he murmured to himself. “You can sense sleep cycles now, game? Guess you have access to the sensors inside there.” There were no other alerts though, and no summons to any location. Perhaps later in the day. 

No work. And no plans, beyond figuring out what this app was. 

The last time he had messed with it, they had seen some wild things.

He could call the others. He was fairly certain they had blocked him though, at least Jessica had. He was fairly certain Jessica had blocked them all except Franky, because Franky made her enough money. And Franky also didn't talk about what happened, even when his viewers asked about it. Norman had to admit Franky's mods were really good at their job, and removed all mentions to 'that' live stream from chat nearly as quick as it appeared. After the first few months, they had stopped asking, and Franky had continued blithely on his way of pictures of food and running on the beach with a grimacing Jessica behind him.

So Peter it was. And Peter could be anywhere since he travelled so much for work. For his job. Not really work, given how sporadic it was. But he still had his number. And he could text him before going out to get groceries.

He was just leaving the house as he sent the message, pulling a jacket on when he nearly ran into someone.

The sound of a text alert went off as he looked up.

“Peter?”

“One second, I have a text,” Peter said in his nasally voice.

“Yeah, that's-” Norman said before falling silent as Peter held up a finger, scrolling slowly through the phone.

“Oh yeah. I've seen the new app as well. Did you download it?” Peter said after what felt like an interminable amount of time reading, Norman biting back a sigh with practised customer service ease.

“Yeah. What...are you doing here?” Norman said, not impatiently, but with concern.

Peter looked at him for what seemed hours before finally speaking. “The app brought me here.”

“Right. Right. Of course it did. What?”

Time again skittered away from Norman before he jerked it back into reality with a slow sigh. 

Peter had pulled out the phone, twisting a long limb to show Norman his phone screen, app opened.

Norman noticed Peter was also level three, but with a faint bit of pride as he hadn't unlocked any abilities yet. He also noticed the brightly flashing quest on the screen, which pinged to “Complete!” just as he read the message - “Reconnect – Make a Party”

The sunlight suddenly felt oppressively bright, causing Norman to turn away from Peter's phone.

“Did you get the same quest?” Peter asked breathily, as though he had been running.

“No. Not yet. Let me check,” Norman said, opening the app once more. While it displayed no quest, it did show he was now in a party with- “That's your username?”

Peter seemed affronted by the question. “Yeah? So? Why, what's yours? Just your name?”

“Yes? Why wouldn't it be.”

Peter rolled his eyes. Norman could almost feel what Peter was thinking. Somehow, Peter decided to not say what was clearly on his mind. “Never mind. The next part of the quest says we should gather supplies. Oh, let me see if I can just share the quest with you.”

A tap of a few buttons and Norman's phone lit up, showing a quest. “It looks like you need to get supplies. It looks like I need to go to the library.”

Peter titled his head before shrugging. “Okay. You do that. I'm going to look around for supplies. Your potted plant in the window had some “sleeping herbs” in them, so you know.”

“I will take that into account. Thank you Peter.”

Norman powerwalked away as quickly as he could, leaving Peter mumbling to himself outside the window of his apartment, phone in front of him like a telescope from afar.

The streets dragged outwards from him, long spindly things, with faces and people and store fronts melding together as he walked towards the library. The library he knew the steps to so well not even a hurricane or blizzard could pull him off guard. He was unsure if something more eldtritch would work, but if he just kept going forward, perhaps he'd never have to find out.

So it was only some surprise he looked up at the library, and not something worse. The phone itself claimed this was indeed a library, although the name was not the one on the building. “Greater Victoria Public Library” the phone claimed to be “Celaeno Outreach Library”

He cleared his throat softly before pushing through the doors, into the warm and welcoming library within.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't think I was going to write more either, and yet, here we are.


End file.
